Apparently,
we are experiencing a period of Great
Singing At The Royal Opera - within a
week or so, some of us heard Renée
Fleming, Ben Heppner, David Daniels, Bruce
Ford, Plácido Domingo, Waltraud
Meier and Bryn Terfel, but as one of those
so favoured I have to report that only
Fleming’s Desdemona and Terfel’s Wotan
fully lived up to the hype, the others
ranging from merely good to rather lazy.
Critics are extraordinary, aren’t they
– I generally get my reviews done before
any print ones are seen, but on this occasion
circumstances have made me uncharacteristically
late, thus allowing me to read other opinions
before my own are committed to publication
- and I’ve been quite astonished by the
level of hysteria whipped up about this
performance, and Domingo in particular,
to the extent that one paper actually
made the review a feature rather than
putting it on the usual pages. Cynics
might say that since most critics are
old men anyway, they are bound to be delighted
by a 64 year old who can, supposedly,
still cut the mustard as a young hero,
but that hardly explains such truly eye-watering
notices as the one in a leading daily
paper in which there was absolutely
nothing whatsoever written about the
singing of the Brünnhilde,
the lady in question being mentioned only
in passing, with a remark about her frock.
I say again, extraordinary – especially
as her singing, along with that of Terfel
and the orchestra, was one of the true
glories of the evening.

‘The
old ones are often the best’ / ‘Still
as romantic a hero as he was at 34’ etc
– the kind of remarks beloved of opera
houses which churn out 30 year old ‘revivals’
of ancient sepia productions, not to mention
64 year old ones of ancient sepia tenors.
I must be frank and say that I have never
been a ‘fan’ of Domingo, save for his
Otello: one has to admit however that
the voice has worn well – but worn it
has, and if you never really liked that
baritonal timbre and approximate German
(delightfully referred to as ‘personal’
by one critic – I’ll have to remember
that definition) then you won’t warm to
it now. He puts a lot into it, of course,
hand-wringing all over the place and really
making the most of Siegmund’s ‘big moments’
- just before ‘Winterstürme' I honestly
thought that the orchestra was going to
stop completely and he was going to step
even further forward to deliver his ‘aria.’
There was much to savour in his singing
– his first phrases always sweep you away,
so that moments like ‘Kühlende Labung’
and ‘Zauberfest / bezähmt ein Schlaf’
make up for a great deal of what follows,
which is too frequently marred by aspirates
and generalized, vowel – dominated diction.
What remains in the mind, though, are
not the faults but the loving assumption
of the character and the moments where
he clearly rises to the occasion of the
tremendous lines, ‘schuf sie ihr den wonnigen
Trost’ being a case in point.

And
what of Terfel’s Wotan? Very fine, although
probably not quite what many Wagnerians
would love: this is a light voice for
the role, not so much a James Morris as
a Norman Bailey, and it is the latter
who comes most frequently to mind when
hearing Terfel, whose anguished portrayal
of Wotan is very much in the Bailey mould
– and that is a compliment, before the
owners of the ‘Bryn My Hero’ fanzine compete
with those of ‘Plácido my Hero’
for a piece of my scalp. Wotan’s narratives
are, of course, terribly boring,
ditto much of the long narratives in the
‘Ring’ – come on, now, surely most of
them could be reduced to the seven or
eight really important lines? – so it’s
vital that the Wotan has dramatic skill
and stage presence, both of which Terfel
possesses to a rare degree, and he manages
to convince you that his tortured tale
does bear repeating – quite a feat. When
you hear him snarl at Fricka or argue
with Brünnhilde with such vigour,
you wonder if he’s going to make it to
the end in the same style, but he does,
and ‘Leb’ wohl, du kühnes, herrliches
Kind!’ was glorious, the lines shaped
with real skill and the diction superb:
he may not have the huge heft of tone
that some would like at times, but his
phrasing and his tenderness in passages
like ‘des Lebewohles letztem Kuss’ are
irreproachable.

Lisa
Gasteen’s Brünnhilde was in a different
class altogether to other recent London
assumptions of the role, her singing (if
you want to know what her frock was
like you’ll have to look elsewhere) as
piercingly clear, heroically convincing
and sympathetically shaped as many others
have been pallid: her ‘Hojotoho’s reminded
me of Rita Hunter (no higher praise) and
her ‘Halt’ein, Wälsung’ was not only
thrillingly sung but redolent of compassion,
especially at ‘Leb’ wohl, Siegmund, seligster
Held!’ The key to a great Brünnhilde
is the combination of tenderness at moments
like ‘Brünnhilde bittet’ and tempestuous
power at others, and in this Gasteen succeeds
as few others do – she also rode the orchestra
easily, no mean feat given the power evident
from it.

I
was less impressed by the Sieglinde of
Waltraud Meier: I find her voice rather
ordinary, with a slightly fluttery vibrato,
and her characterization unmoving – ‘Die
Wunden weise mir schnell’ sounded like
‘A cof – fee? That would be great’ and
‘O süsseste Wonne!’ did not produce
that ‘lump in the throat’ feeling. She
was at her best in the third act, ‘O hehrstes
Wunder!’ finally revealing a genuinely
moving sound. Rosalind Plowright was brilliantly
cast as Fricka, and Eric Halfvarson’s
dark voice and brooding presence were
ideal for Hunding.

Orchestrally,
the performance was magnificent: the swift
tempo of the overture was ideal, those
snarling horns surpassing anything I’ve
heard them do before, and the strings
so eloquent in the quiet passages - Pappano
directed a performance of sheer exhilarating
glory in each act, with a kind of dramatic
tension and energy as well as serenity
where needed, that I have not heard since
Goodall. The hype may have concerned itself
with ‘The Prom King’ but for me the real
‘star’ was the orchestra. The audience
received the performance with the expected
rapture, and quite right too: this is
one of the greatest works in the whole
musical canon, and one hopes that this
‘first’ complete performance of it at
the Proms won’t be the last for the near
future, although it’s hard to imagine
a starrier one.